Information hitting our news desk indicates that up to 17 people were murdered in Ancha village in the Miango axis of Plateau state. Scores of people are also believed to be very critically injured, and as such the death toll is expected to rise beyond 17.

Survivors who narrated their ordeal to our correspondent, indicated that in the early hours of Friday morning – they awoke to sounds of sporadic gun fire and rushed out to escape and in the pandemonium, many fell to gun shot fire from suspected herds-men.

This strategy of shooting randomly to cause confusion with gun-fire and then subsequently laying ambush on the fleeing villagers, bears the signatures of Fulani attacks that have been witnessed in Riyom, Barkin Ladi, Jos South etc – and as such many suspect the attackers to be herdsmen.

Investigations by ViewPointNigeria indicates that the dead comprises women, children and the aged and that some families were almost entirely wiped out out -as the mother and children were all murdered.

At the time of filing this report, the corpse were already deposited at various mortuaries in Jos metropolis.

This new attack comes at a very unfortunate time when Plateau is commemorating the 16th Anniversary of the Sept 7th 2001 crisis and calls into question the numerous truces and pacts that have been established between Fulani herdsmen and natives. It also make mockery of claims that a lasting solution to the attacks has been found.

ViewPointNigeria Analysis

Governor Lalong and indeed the Bureau for peace and conflict resolution have done a tremendous job of reducing the frequency of attacks on the Plateau.

During the height of the attacks 4 years ago, suspected herdsmen were sacking and killing villagers 4 times in a week – with an average weekly death toll of approx. 21 people. In fact, virtually all large villages in Riyom, Barkin Ladi and Riyom were attacked with numerous hamlets and settlements permanently wiped-off the face of the earth.

As it currently stands, 13 Berom hamlets and villages in Riyom and Barkin Ladi remain deserted and in some cases, taken over by Fulani herdsmen – an example is a Berom village called Rankum which has now been taken over by thousands of Fulani herdsmen and now renamed Mahanga by the herdsmen.

Both the Berom and Fulani continue to lay claim to the territory. In fact, in the Fulani’s latest submission, they claim to have been in the settlement for the past 500 years. The Berom on the other hand continue to argue that when the Fulanis came to the area in the last few decades -their Ardos were faithful in paying land tax to the resident chief and the community and maintain that the lands were never bought nor sold.

The land tussle portends a clear and present danger which if not solved can cause massive upheaval and trouble in the near future.

We cannot claim that peace has fully returned to Plateau is these debacles are unsettled. For peace to fully return, issues such as these must be fully resolved and all parties ameliorated, else the attacks will continue. Which brings me to the old saying that “peace is not the absence of crisis, but the presence of Justice“.

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Fresh Attack: 17 people killed in overnight attack in Miango village